PERRY, Georgia — Just think of what it takes to run the Georgia National Fair. Every food stand and booth on the midway and the strip must have power.
For 32 years, George Neal made sure it all ran flawlessly, but he's not with us this October. He’s truly missed by people like Joyce Mann.
“We did a womanless wedding and he was a beautiful woman. I have to say he did really good,” she chuckled.
Mann crunches numbers as fast as funnel cakes flying out a window.
She's the head accountant at the Georgia National Fair.
An old worn down brown wooden chair in her office is where her friend George Neal sat every day to chat.
“We're close to each other because I introduced him to his wife,” Joyce recalled.
Cindy and George met 24 years ago at the fairgrounds got married and had four children.
In essence, the electrician and supervisor had two families.
“If he wasn't with us with the kids, the animals, he was here. He just felt like this was his second home and he wanted the Ag Center to shine,” George’s wife said.
Cindy thought she had more time with George, but he passed away this summer at the age of 58 from cancer.
“He couldn't swallow. He couldn't eat. He lost a lot of weight,” Cindy said.
George died from what began as esophageal cancer. It got in his back and in his brain and through his chemotreatments he came to work.
George's crew was always Cindy's family too, and there are shared memories and tales about the man so dedicated to the people around him.
“I hear stories all the time from the guys or just anybody of George and how much he loved them and how much he meant to them and how much they miss him now,” she said.
“It's hurting me I miss him I miss the expertise I miss him staying on everything, it's just like a hole in all the GNFA hearts,” Mann said.
It's an adjustment for everyone to mourn for a man who ran a tight ship but had kindness in his heart that few could match.
“The fair will just be different. We're here every single day of the fair even if we're not showing animals. We're here spending time with him. That's how we spent time with George you went to the fair," Cindy said somberly.
George used to cook a big meal for his guys during the fair. Cindy says this year she's going to do that for them. She says George would have wanted that.